Contents
Vol 350, Issue 6264
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Podcasts
- Science Podcast: 27 November Show
On this week's show: Bioengineering vocal cords and a roundup of daily news stories.
Products & Materials
- New Products
A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.
In Brief
In Depth
- More delays for ITER fusion project
Review notes progress but estimates “first plasma” will take 6 years longer than planned.
- An obscure mosquito-borne disease goes global
After racing through Oceania last year, the Zika virus is now spreading in the Americas.
- An end to U.S. chimp research
NIH announces plans to retire its last chimpanzees.
- Gene drive turns mosquitoes into malaria fighters
Antiparasite genes made to spread among lab insects.
- China pursues fraudsters in science publishing
Measures may not be enough to stem the tide, some fear.
Feature
- Climate crossroads
After decades of failure, a new approach to negotiations has raised hopes that nations meeting in Paris will agree to meaningful climate steps.
- After Paris: The rocky road ahead
Officials call the Paris talks a beginning, but what's the destination? Below are three possible future paths for annual global greenhouse gas emissions. Models suggest each would produce very different ranges of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and warming in 2100. And all would cause the seas to rise for centuries after 2100.
- Clean revolution
Denmark is striving to become the world's first carbon-neutral nation.
- Can India keep its promises?
India hopes that steps to limit climate change will also improve its citizens' lives. Critics say such “cobenefits” may be a pipe dream.
Working Life
Letters
Books et al.
- Humanity 2.0
A new exhibition explores how scientific advances are changing what it means to be human
- Intimate details
A long-forgotten social science archive offers a lesson in responsible data management
- Books Received
A listing of books received at Science during the week ending 20 November 2015.
Policy Forum
- Understanding China's non–fossil energy targets
Methodology standardization will improve comparability
Perspectives
- The indispensable genome
The core genes essential for life in human cells are defined
- A quick look at how photoelectrodes work
Transient photoreflectance spectroscopy reveals charge carrier dynamics in water splitting
- Could microbial therapy boost cancer immunotherapy?
Intestinal microbes affect immunotherapy responses in mouse models of cancer
- Optical meta-atoms: Going nonlinear
Metamaterials are poised to transform nonlinear optics
- Learning from Africa's herbivores
Herbivore diversity plays a key role in grassland ecosystems
- How Victoria's fishes were knocked from their perch
Evolutionary innovations are not always beneficial
- Christopher Marshall (1949–2015)
A cell biologist's meticulous work drove the discovery of new cancer treatments
Association Affairs
- Fifty years after U.S. climate warning, scientists confront communication barriers
At the AAAS symposium, researchers searched for new avenues of public engagement to address the gap in climate change beliefs
- AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award winners named
This year's winners included stories on the health impacts of urban violence, local signs of global climate change, and West Africa's Ebola epidemic
Review
Research Articles
- Principles of connectivity among morphologically defined cell types in adult neocortex
The connections between more than 10,000 pairs of individually classified neurons in the visual cortex of adult mice are mapped.
- A continent-wide assessment of the form and intensity of large mammal herbivory in Africa
Census data reveal the ways that large herbivores impact vegetation and ecosystems across a continent.
Reports
- Semiconductor interfacial carrier dynamics via photoinduced electric fields
Reflection spectroscopy offers insights into the boost to charge separation conferred by TiO2 coatings on photoelectrodes.
- Near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield in MoS2
Superacid treatment enhances the luminescence efficiency of monolayer molybdenum disulfide from 1% to >95%.
- Deformation-assisted fluid percolation in rock salt
Salt deposits in the Gulf of Mexico show evidence of deformation-driven fluid percolation.
- Predicting poverty and wealth from mobile phone metadata
Metadata from individuals’ phones can be used to predict aggregate-level characteristics such as access to electricity.
- A pharyngeal jaw evolutionary innovation facilitated extinction in Lake Victoria cichlids
Jaw specialization in fish may have paradoxically reduced speciation in the African Great Lakes.
- Anticancer immunotherapy by CTLA-4 blockade relies on the gut microbiota
Gut microbes modulate the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies in mice.
- Commensal Bifidobacterium promotes antitumor immunity and facilitates anti–PD-L1 efficacy
Gut microbes modulate the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies in mice.
- Malaria parasites target the hepatocyte receptor EphA2 for successful host infection
The hepatocyte EphA2 receptor is important for malaria parasite infection of the liver and is engaged by the parasite ligand P36.
- Gene essentiality and synthetic lethality in haploid human cells
Systematic mutagenesis reveals essential genetic interactions required for human cells to keep growing.
- Identification and characterization of essential genes in the human genome
A comprehensive screen identifies genes required for normal and cancerous human cells to keep growing.
- Genome-wide inactivation of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs)
CRISPR-Cas genome editing is adapted to remove 62 copies of a retrovirus from the porcine genome.
- Cotranslational protein folding on the ribosome monitored in real time
A small protein folds into a non-native form as it is synthesized on the ribosome before adopting its native shape.
Erratum
About The Cover

COVER Symbolizing the choices facing climate negotiators next week in Paris, a windmill and the smokestack of a coal-burning power plant stand less than a kilometer apart in a coal-mining area of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. See pages 1007, 1016, and 1034.
Photo: © Jochen Tack/imageBROKER/Corbis